Finally there is some word getting out about the reign of terror the DEA has been running against pain doctors and its awful impact. This article, called Let’s Get Serious About Relieving Chronic Pain picks up from the NEJM article I wrote about last week. We have known at least since the HHS report in the early 1990s that pain medication is massively under-prescribed. In this article, Jane Brody notes that :

"Pain is a common symptom in patients nearing the end of life," with up to "77 percent of patients suffering unrelieved, pronounced pain during the last year of life," Dr. Timothy J. Moynihan wrote in The Mayo Clinic Proceedings in 2003.

But the news is that the DEA, on its messianic quest to prevent us all going to hell or whatever the theocratic fascists think they’re doing, is not only wasting our time and money, and condemning innocent doctors and patients to prison.  They are also helping most people to suffer in their last year of life. Well I’m sure the DEA think it’s a deal worth taking, but I can’t believe any rational person does. If there’s one government agency that ought to be abolished and have all its employees sent to fill in prairie dog-holes in Nebraska (or wherever), it’s surely the DEA.